


Two Bits

by Bibliodragon



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M, Haircuts, Prison, Skeevy Prison Gaius, Unorthodox Interrogation, Unresolved Sexual Tension, post-New Caprica
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:15:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24569869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bibliodragon/pseuds/Bibliodragon
Summary: Post-New Caprica, Laura Roslin has something that needs to get done
Kudos: 6





	Two Bits

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A Close Shave](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25177) by [icedteainthebag](https://archiveofourown.org/users/icedteainthebag/pseuds/icedteainthebag). 



> Originally written for 2011's bsg_remix on livejournal, a remix of iceteainthebag's A Close Shave. Thanks to plaid_slytherin for the beta.

Gods, he is infuriating. She could put her heel through his throat, she really could. But then she would never have gotten anything but lies and excuses out of his deceitful mouth. Unkempt, unshaven, Gods know the last time he showered, his lying ass locked up, yet still he lounges there without a care in the universe.

She could kill him, she really could.

But that wouldn’t get her what she wanted.

The practicalities had all been taken care of, fortuitous mechanical malfunctions to ensure complete privacy, the right people looking in the right direction away. She breathes deep, calmly, outwardly showing nothing beyond set determination and revealing nothing as within petty things such as horror and disgust are filed away, mental compartments moved and filed so she can focus on the task at hand.

The anger she holds tight.

Half asleep, it is easy for Gaius Baltar: unjust prisoner of a corrupt system, to imagine he is still in the middle of a dream. Or perhaps a nightmare. The image of President Laura Roslin standing over him in full indignant Goddess mode and holding something sharp and shining in one hand certainly is a sight from his deepest horrors.

“Madame President.” Thank God for his instincts; the casual, self-confident tone to his voice comes naturally, and he is grateful he didn’t fall off the bunk in shock. “I’m surprised to see you back so soon.”

Her expression does not even flicker from the one of blank disgust and fury so carefully hidden as to be completely obvious. He has to resist the urge to scramble upright from his vulnerable position on his back, but he does manage it; he may not be on his best form after being woken so rudely but he’s not going to give her the satisfaction of seeing how terrified of her he is. If he was terrified of her, that is. He’s not. But he’s not going to let her think that he is. Not that she would do anything to him, anyway. Physically. Like put one of those heels through his throat.

He is almost sure.

Perhaps slightly less than ninety-nine percent.

Glancing down at her clenched fist, he finally allows himself to try and work out just what it is she is holding there.

She is holding a pair of scissors.

His body, feeling his mind has been in charge long enough, gives in to the delayed response to get to his feet. The urge to pace, or to cower in the nearest corner, desperate primal urges to flee have to be stamped down hard, and his body does not submit easily to his mind’s determination to cling on to the tattered remains of his dignity. The restless energy causes his limbs to twitch in place, crossing his arms, then uncrossing to scratch at his beard and then crossed again, while shifting his weight from one leg to the other in an awkward dance step.

She doesn’t notice. He is almost sure she doesn't notice.

She hasn’t brought the entourage with her, which is the second surprise of the day. Is that a good or bad sign? Good, surely, at least he isn’t going to have to put up with Colonel Tigh’s sour face. He must have missed the marines escorting her in, no doubt they would be waiting just out of view to swoop in, in case the prisoner tried anything and required a bit of brutality.

“Gaius.” She sounds perfectly calm, a perfect contrast to their earlier interrogations. He had rather hoped she had given up on them. Perhaps this is a new tactic. Standing and looking at him, managing not to look as if she doesn’t want to eviscerate him on the spot. While holding scissors.

Damn his genius brain and its ability to connect the dots so vividly.

He can feel the sweat beginning to gather on his palms. He furtively wipes them against the front of what passes for a prison uniform before gesturing at the bare cell around them. “I, ah, I would offer you a seat but...”

“I’m not interested in pleasantries, Gaius.”

“No, I didn’t think you were.” He has to face her all alone, there is no sign of his unworldly companion. Of course he has to face her on his own, he always is on his own. Apart from the constant, ever loving embrace of God, of course.

God likes to test him.

She hasn’t started screaming at him again. Oh, how he hopes she won’t start screaming at him again. His ears haven’t stopped ringing from the last time. But she has to know that he knows she’s not going to have him thrown out the airlock, and from the particular venom in her glare she knows he knows.

It is a little victory, and it must have shown on his face, because he wouldn’t have thought her face could harden any further without showing any actual expression until she manages it. It’s quite impressive, really, and his blood simultaneously runs hot and cold. Now that is something he would have not thought possible had it not been for the events of the past few years.

Six, his Six, his Angel of God, she would be laughing at him if she had not abandoned him at this time. He can almost hear her laughing softly in his ear in a silence that he babbles to fill.

“I suppose it is too much to hope you are here to inform me you have found me a lawyer? No? I suppose not, I suppose the Colonial legal host are all very busy at this time. With very important tasks, no doubt, doing things with what passes for law, charging unreasonable fees.”

“You really think anyone in this fleet would want to even look at your case? You think anyone who went through New Caprica would even want to be in the same room as you?”

She’s doing that slow-talking, enunciate-every-word thing. His breathing quickens. “And yet you make time in your busy schedule to drop by.” It’s the wrong thing to say. He can see it in the tension of her jaw, but some sort of insanity keeps him going. “Not that I’m not grateful, these do break up the day, and I am sure the President of the Twelve Colonies doesn’t have anything better to do. And perhaps Colonial One is having engine trouble, that must be it, to be on Galactica so often. I won’t be so vain as to assume it is all for my benefit, the Admiral must be feeling the effect on his stamina.”

The slap rings out suddenly, he is aware of the sound of it before the sharp sting of it registers. That had been unexpected, if not for the wall at his back he likely would have rolled back from surprise if not the force behind it. A moment of self-awareness: he imagines he must be gaping like a fool, and quite frankly it was extremely foolish of him to provoke her, and at least he must be grateful she used the hand that did not result in him now having scissors embedded in his throat, all while she is settled into the same neutral hate of before. Only the strands of hair fallen forward lightly against the right side of her face gives her away.

Then she is right there, right in front of him, so close he can feel her breath brushing against skin still tingling from her last physical contact.

“Do you think I want to be here?” The words are hissed through white teeth. “Do you think I hadn’t hoped we had left you behind in the mess you created?”

“That wasn’t my mess!” His response is immediate, an undignified yelp. “That, that was a mess beyond my control!”

“Shh.” She lifts her hand again, and this time he can see it coming. This time he can flinch from it, but instead her touch is gentle, cupping his chin to lift his head up to meet her gaze. To go from safe, familiar ground of accusations and finger pointing to this is unsettling, to put it at its mildest. “I don’t want to hear any more lies, Gaius.”

“It’s not.” Her touch is light, fingertips only needing to brush against his skin, yet the small point of contact is burning through to the bone. “They’re not, I didn‘t- I don’t know what it is you want from me.”

“Another lie.” As close as she is, he has to struggle to hear her over the ever- present hum of the ship around them. “Things would be so much easier for you if you would just tell the truth.”

He doesn’t need Six whispering in his ear, her fingers running down his spine, to tell him what would happen if he did. “You mean tell you what you want to hear, whatever that is, and whether it is the truth or not having no bearings on my corpse flying out the nearest airlock as soon as you’ve gotten whatever it is that you are after, because who needs laws and rules when Laura Roslin has gotten whatever, completely imaginary, thing it is she wants.”

“I can’t possibly imagine what it’s like.” She is far, far too close to him, he can feel the warm of her body, the faint trace of whatever perfume she carefully rations out every morning, and he can feel the strain of his eyes as he tries to keep his gaze from drifting downwards to that white blouse that made official meetings back when he was Vice President so worthwhile. The touch against his chin becomes more insistent. “Living with such a burden on your shoulders, every day with the constant fear that this will be the day that you are found out, and people will see you for what you really are. The fear that never lets up, ever. Not even for a moment. Wouldn't it be so much easier to finally be able to let it go?”

He swallows, the movement causing her fingertips brushing against him in a false caress. “Lau-Madame President, I don’t know what you are talking about. New Caprica, well, mistakes were made, different decisions could have been made, but this, this obsession, this fixation that you have, it, it cannot be healthy for you, really, it can‘t.”

“I don’t know why I’m disappointed.” He can imagine her using the same tone when a student brought her a piece of schoolwork not up to standard. “You just can’t make things easier on yourself, can you?” The blank anger is back. The very absence of anger rolls off her, and at such close quarters, it is all the more terrifying, even though he would have not thought such a thing possible.

“Make it easier for you, you mean. You get your false confession of, of, this thing, this whatever it is you think I should confess to, and you have your justification to have me killed, and you can go on as if nothing had happened, look yourself in the mirror as if you haven’t had someone, someone who hadn’t done anything, killed. No matter the illegality of it, of all this!” Words that he has said many times since his incarceration, if not necessarily in that order, words that have gone unheeded by stubborn listeners who continue to leave him to rot. “I know my rights! This, this is uncivilized, that’s what it is! Is this what our civilization has come to?”

Her other hand has found its way round the back of his head unnoticed, leaving him to yelp in surprise when she takes a fistful of hair, to pull his head back. “Don’t you- if only you had cared about the state of this civilization when it depended on your leadership. Where was your concern when you were lounging around my ship with your whores? When you were colluding with the Cylons against your own people?”

She is even closer, her face filling his vision. There is little strength behind her grip on him, he has to hold himself up awkwardly, knees bent and head back, as so not to fall backwards and out of her grip. He doesn’t know why he doesn’t do just that, and allow gravity to free him. But when despite his avoidance he accidentally meets her gaze, he has his answer.

“You really are a beautiful woman.”

It was Six’s fault he said that. Oh, it was true, perfectly true, but he never would have said it out loud were it not for Six and being far too used to the blend of attraction and down right terror. He’s definitely going to go out the airlock now, even though it’s not his fault that he is a perfectly normal man reacting to a perfectly attractive woman. Who hates him and is looking for the slightest excuse to have him killed.

It was all Six’s fault.

She looks at him, and blinks slowly. Perhaps she didn’t hear that. Perhaps he just imagined he said that out loud. Perhaps she couldn’t hear him over the sound of his heart threatening to beat its way out of his chest. Perhaps for once God will feel he has tested his faithful servant enough for one day.

Perhaps not.

“Gods.” Close as she is, he is not even certain he heard the word in her exhale of derision, then he is distracted by falling backwards at the sudden loss of pressure at the back of his head, minimal as it was. Though the pain receptors clearly don’t agree, still flashing points of sharp pain under his unfortunate hair as he braces his hand against the bulkhead, quickly adopting a casual pose as if he had not just said something so stupid and then was capable of being knocked off balance by a middle-aged school teacher turned terrifying President who wasn’t even trying.

She doesn’t pay any attention to his nonchalance; instead she is looking at her hand as she runs the pad of her thumb over her fingertips. The least she could is notice he clearly hasn’t done anything, and if he had he doesn’t care what she thinks, but that would only be if he had done something and oh God, she’s moving towards him again!

“Sit.”

Godsdamn him if she was not going to get something out of this. Leaning awkwardly over him as he sits on the bunk, she is having to touch his hair again as she holds his head straight, but the benefits are worth the short term suffering.

“If you don’t stop twitching, you’ll loose an ear. Sit still!”

As each snip sends another cut of hair floating to the floor she feels a small, heavy thump of satisfaction. If he is determined to string this out at least she won’t have the nagging urge to wash her own hair every time she has to look at him.


End file.
